<VV> Body advise

[vairologist at juno.com]

> From: "Alan and Clare Wesson" <alan.wesson at atlas.co.uk>

> As a demo of what I mean, I would dearly love to hear from anyone 
> (pictures please) who has repaired a large dent in the middle of a Vair
door, 
> and has used no bondo at all in the process. I would genuinely be very 
> interested to hear how they did it.
> 
> The reason is that when steel is dented, it stretches, and so although
the 
> dent can be largely knocked out and planished, and the door can be 
> returned to 99% of its original state, it is impossible to return it to
stock 
> because the metal is stretched and absolutely cannot retain its
original 
> shape. The only way this can be achieved is surface filling using
bondo, and 
> 99.99% of bodyshops (not us though) leave ripples in the bondo that are

> visible when you look along the side of the car from the front or back.
> 
> Similarly, the heat from welding stretches and distorts the metal, and
it 
> cannot regain its original shape. Good people (my guy) can get  close,
but 
> some surface filling is still vital
---------------------------------
Smitty says:  How wrong you are my island inhabiting friend.  I am hardly
a master at the craft but I have shrunk a good many square yards of body
sheet metal in my time.  The process can shrink a hailstone type dent,
and on a larger scale can shrink a big "belly" in a panel that has been
stretched by working it to remove minor dents and wrinkles.  I have no
pictures but it goes like this.  Using a gas torch a spot is heated,
moving the flame in a circular motion around a 1" circle and bringing the
circle tighter untill the flame is heating the center of the circle. 
Timing is a skill thing as the desired condition is to get to the center
of the circle just as the metal comes just beyond red heat and moving
toward yellow.  The spot will be so expanded from the heat it will poke
out like a pimple toward the flame.  Quickly placing a body dolly behind
the spot and using a planishing hammer the high spot is knocked down
flat, being careful to not smash the metal between the hammer and the
dolly.  By doing this you have thickened the metal that was heated and it
brings great stress upon the surrounding metal pulling it inward.  By
judiciously spotting in this manner you can shrink the metal as needed to
flatten dents without the use of more than a couple of mils of putty or
filler.  I have over done this a couple of times and pulled the curve out
of a panel too far.  Had to go back over it and dolly the panel carefully
to put the proper curve back in it.